“Speaking of dragons…” He pinned me with a stare. “How the hell are youone?”
I recoiled. “What? You’re supposed to tell methat!”
He opened his arms as if to say he was as in the dark as I was.Great.I groaned. This guy was supposed to have all of myanswers.
“I have no idea,” I told him. “One second I’m a human hiking along the rim of the Grand Canyon, and the next I’m falling—my body rips in two and becomes a dragon freak show.” My dragon stirred at that and I got the sense she didn’t like me calling her a freak show. Were we separate? It felt like we were. Kind of.Wow. Sounded like a multiple personality disorder. Maybe this was all a part of a massive paranoid delusion? I thought I was a dragon and now I was having delusions that I met another hot male dragon. Yikes, I needed to be committed forsure.
Logan stood quickly and began pacing. “Hold on. You were a human for twenty-one years and only recently transformed for the first time?” His voice was coated inshock.
I threw my arms up. “Either that or I’m having paranoiddelusions!”
He stopped pacing and gave me a look filled with pity. “You’re not crazy. I saw your dragon with my own two eyes … but it’s not possible. When dragons are born, they transform right after hatching. They flit between human and dragon a dozen times a day in their first year as a youngling. The hunters would have gotten to youthen.”
At some point I must have grabbed my head, because I was massaging mytemples.
“I was born in a hospital, as a baby. Ahumanbaby. I have pictures and all that. Like I told you, I just recently turned, or whatever you callit.”
He was pacing madly around the kitchen, chewing a fingernail and wafting his yummy scent at me as he passed. “Who’s your mother?” he askedsuddenly.
A pang of sadness went through me at the random question. “She’s … dead. Died of breast cancer when I wassixteen.”
He stopped pacing and gave me a look that you would find at the pound right before an animal was euthanized. “I’m sorry to hear that. She was … your realmother?”
I snapped my head back, offended. “Yes! Red hair and all!” I tossed a lock of my crimson hair up in theair.
He put up his hands in defense. “Right. Sorry. And yourdad?”
I chewed my bottom lip. This guy was getting awfully personal when he had yet to answer any of my questions, but I could see where he was going with this. “He died before I was born. But my mom never mentioned he was a dragon,” I addedsarcastically.
Logan chewed on another nail. I wasn’t sure he would have any left by the time this conversation wasover.
“Even if your father was a dragon, it wouldn’t explain why you never transformed for over twenty years. And it sure as hell wouldn’t be possible without a female dragon to matewith.”
I shrugged and stood as well. I didn’t like being looked down on. How was I expected to answer all of these questions? I knew nothing about this new and terrifyingworld.
“Now you answer some questions for me,” Iordered.
He seemed to snap out of whatever thoughts had him captivated, and looked at me with those deep emeraldeyes.
“Okay. What do you want to know?” His body turned towards me and I tried not to remember what he looked like with his shirt off. I don’t care what hesmelled, my dragon was still in heat, because these thoughts weren’tmine.
“Who are the hunters and why do they want to kill me?” I folded my arms and my red mane fell in a curtain around myface.
Logan seemed to be considering what to tell me. His eyes had narrowed and he wasn’t speaking, he was just … looking atme.
“And don’t lie!” I jabbed a finger in his direction and was rewarded with a devastatingly handsomesmile.
“I wasn’t going to lie. I just want to bring you into this slowly. If you think you’re having paranoid delusions now, you won’t want to sleep at night if I tell you everything in onesitting.”
Yikes.I recoiled and sat back down. “Okay … just tell me what they want withme.”
He nodded. “Hunters work for the earthbound, the druids. The druids want dragons dead because we harness magic for humanity—magic the druids need to bepowerful.”
“Huh?” My head was reeling. What the hell was a druid? “Humans don’t need magic. That doesn’t even make sense.” There was a throbbing at the base of my skull; I ran a hand over the area, trying to work a knot out of myneck.
Logan stepped closer, eating up the distance between us, so close now that I could reach out and touch him. “Listen to me, Sloane, because this is the greatest lesson I could ever teach you.” His voice was gruff, and the way his eyes pierced into me had me sitting erect, hanging on his everyword.
“The humans need our magic to survive. Without it they get sick. Cancer, fibromyalgia, arthritis, plagues, it’s all from the loss of dragonmagic.”
